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03 April, 2007
Final Days in New Zealand!

We arrived in Auckland and had a full day and a half to see some sights before heading back home. By this point Mom was exhausted from doing 28 presentations in 9 days, and as much as I loved New Zealand, I was so ready to be back in my own house and was missing Jimmy and Kyla like crazy. Still, we managed to pack a ton of activities into our final days. Mom’s friend Sarah from the conference picked us up and drove us out to her house, which was situated on a cliff overlooking an estuary.

She had a gorgeous, enviable view and as we sat on her deck eating some delicious snacks, we got to watch parrots (actual PARROTS) fly around her yard. Crazy.

After we sat around and chatted for a little while, she drove us down to Karekare Beach, which is where the movie The Piano was filmed. I haven’t seen it but I guess I should now that I’ve been there, huh? The drive down was through very mountainous terrain. I did not enjoy. Haha. The beach was totally worth it, though.

We had to walk through a small creek to get access down to the beach. My flip flops came apart in the thick black mud. We were told that Karekare beach is one of the only black sand beaches in the world. The sand gets seriously hot and can cause severe burns if you walk on it when it’s dry, so we stuck to the wet parts.

When I say the sand was black, I’m not kidding. It glittered blue in the sun as well.

The landscape, colors and textures I saw at this beach were totally unique to New Zealand. I love how most of their beaches are butted right up next to mountains or cliffs like this.

It was a perfect, sunny day when we went, but I imagine if you came down here on a rainy, gloomy day, it ould be extremely dramatic.

A rather crowded day at a New Zealand beach.

Men and small children were fishing from the rocks.

We walked down the beach a little bit into a rocky area near one of the cliffs, and I captured some of the textures to show you guys how different this is from the seascapes at home.

A little alcove of rocks. I loved the lime green slimy algae on that back wall.

The texture of the rocks is very unique in this area. I believe they are volcanic rocks, and that’s what makes the sand black.

Tiny barnacles covered many surfaces.

Needless to say, I didn’t try walking on any of these. After we left the beach, we headed up to the TUANZ office, for a little reception, where they presented Mom with thank you gifts, and everyone said goodbye. I have to say, these people were wonderful. I tried to stay in the background as much as possible, since I wasn’t really part of the conference at all, but they tried to involve me at every turn and made me feel extremely welcome. Thank you! The CEO and his wife took us out to dinner at the harborside in Auckland, at an excellent Italian restaurant called Portofino. I had the risotto vegetale. It was magnificent.

The next day (which was the day we were to leave), one of the conference attendees who wanted to talk about collaborating with Mom picked us up and gave us a mini tour of Auckland. He took us to the top of the Sky Tower, and we got some awesome views of the city.

The viewing area is fitted with glass panels you can walk on to see the city below. It was eerie being suspended that high with only glass between you and certain death. Good times!

After we left the Sky Tower, we drove around for a while and ate lunch at a nice Belgian restaurant overlooking another one of Auckland’s beaches. Then it was back to the airport for a loooong, looooooooong flight. We got checked in and waited for our plane to leave (an hour late). After an extremely uncomfortable 12 hour flight to Los Angeles, we got off, stiff and groggy and got checked through customs. We had a really tight connection and had to rush to get our luggage (which was not where it was supposed to be) and run to catch our flight. We made it just in time for them to tell us that there was a mechanical failure with the plane, and the flight would be delayed. Ugh.

We sat around for a while, and it kept getting bumped back further and further. They finally got a new plane, but by the time they were ready to board, the ticket readers went down. By this time we had already missed our connection in Dallas and knew we were going to have to spend the night there. We finally arrived in Dallas at 10:00 pm and I left my iPod ON THE PLANE! UGH!!! (still haven’t received it back, and probably won’t ever see it again, sniffle)

They rebooked us on a 6:20am flight to Norfolk and gave us vouchers for a hotel in Dallas. We got bused over and by the time we waited in an extremely long line, we checked into our hotel — rancid and very much needing food and a shower — at midnight. They kept our luggage at the airport, so all we had was our carry on bags, with no change of clothes or any shampoo, etc (thanks, USA, for limiting liquids on flights!). The hotel didn’t have anything to offer us because they had a whole planeful of people there begging for toiletries. The vending machines were all empty. The hotel was nasty. Also, we were both on New Zealand time, so we got mere minutes of sleep before we had to get up and get on the new plane.

We finally arrived in Norfolk, exhausted and looking particularly busted, but really glad to be home. I will never forget the experiences I had in New Zealand (thank you so much Mom for taking me!!!), and maybe one of these days I will go back, after I forget how hellaciously long it takes to GET there.

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